Whitney Museum Unveils Design by Renzo Piano for New Downtown Building

published May 6, 2008
Whitney Museum Unveils Design by Renzo Piano for New Downtown Building
The Whitney Museum of American Art released detailed plans to add a second Whitney Museum site to the cultural and civic landscape of New York City with the construction of a new, six-floor, 185,000-squarefoot building in downtown Manhattan.

Located in the Meatpacking District on Gansevoort Street, between West Street and the redeveloped High Line park, the new building, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Renzo Piano, will place the Whitney in the heart of New York's most active neighborhood for the visual arts and education.

The downtown Whitney will include approximately 50,000 square feet of galleries, providing long-awaited opportunities to show more of its unsurpassed collection of 20th and 21st century American art in tandem with cutting-edge temporary exhibitions.

Approximately 15,000 square feet of rooftop galleries will be situated on various levels of the building, allowing for dynamic outdoor exhibitions.

A dramatically cantilevered entrance along Gansevoort Street will shelter a public plaza that is destined to become a popular outdoor gathering space, created only steps away from the southern entrance to the High Line.

The new building will engage the Whitney directly with the bustling community of artists, gallerists, students, educators, entrepreneurs, and residents in Chelsea and Greenwich Village, where the Museum was founded by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney in 1930.